


Trading Wings for Knives

by lalalive



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalive/pseuds/lalalive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a tumblr post: After spending thousands of years in the Cage, Adam is mysteriously freed, but he’s been driven mad from the mental torture of the two archangels trapped down there with him. Encouraged by his hallucinations of Lucifer, Adam sets off to find his two brothers — and take his revenge for being left behind. </p><p>Link: http://kikaisaigono.tumblr.com/post/43851371413/season-9-after-spending-thousands-of-years-in</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trading Wings for Knives

When I came to, I coughed dirt and blood out of my lungs for a few seconds before bracing for the impending strike. I didn't bother to open my eyes. I'd grown tired of watching my skin melt like rubber. It was a pattern I was keenly familiar with: the bending, the breaking, the inevitable death, and the reluctant rebirth. It had taken a few hundred years to get used to that first burning inhale and the sputter of saliva as it was punched out of me not seconds later, to resign myself to the idea that I was a thing made to be killed and killing was no fun if the victim wasn't breathing. 

After waiting for what felt like an eternity, the break of my bones didn't register and I furrowed my brow. It was only when I realized the air wasn't made out of sulfur that I peeled my lids apart. I was on the side of a road, in god knows where, naked but whole. I told myself it was a hallucination. They'd happened before, 'gifts' from an archangel who liked to play with my mind before hissing hate at me through clenched teeth. But the wind on my face from a passing car blew exhaust into my mouth instead of opening new wounds so it became clear I had made it out. 

There wasn't any relief, just a dull throb in the back of my head and the anticipation of being dragged down again. I figured that anxiety would always be one step behind me; it would never go away. The only thing I thought or cared about was survival. I wasn't too far from a development of architecturally similar homes, a suburban oasis just waiting to be dismantled. I didn't bother to cover my dick as I walked, a skill that took some relearning. It's a strange thing, walking. To me it was a privilege. 

As I approached a long row of houses, I studied which I should target. Some had lights on, others didn't. I didn't know what time it was. I couldn't tell if it was spring or summer, if the wealthy had retreated to summer homes or the elderly had gone to bed. I took my chances on a house at the far end of the street. It was large, the largest on the road, but still appeared modest. A marvel of modern architecture. I tried the door to find it locked, looking around for a piece of cloth. I didn't want to but the only way I was going to get in was by putting my fist through the glass. There was nothing around me. I shrugged my shoulders and figured I should just go for it. Shards of glass in my skin seemed almost pleasant after what I'd been through. 

I mustered my strength, smacking my elbow violently against what I hoped was its weak point before sending my fist through jagged splinters that drew cuts up my arm. I blindly felt around for the lock, turning the knob with slick fingers. When I stood in the foyer atop pointed shards, I flexed my toes and calmly studied my shredded knuckles. I felt no pain. None at all. It became clear that the nerves along my flesh had been flayed. I'd been skinned alive and put back together so many times that pieces of me had gone missing. The sad truth was that I wanted to feel the sting. At least this was my choice, at least this pain was mine. 

I quickly found the master bedroom, a too large space bigger than a third of my old house. In the closet I found a button down shirt and a pair of black trousers that would fit with a belt and a few hearty meals. Did it feel strange to wear someone else's clothes? It was better than wearing someone's skin like a necrophilic angel. 

I fumbled around the master bath for a light switch, just so I could get a good look at the person I'd been made into. My reflection was a stranger. I looked like I'd been hollowed; gutted, turned to wax and put on ice for too long. My eyes had become sunken, my cheekbones too pronounced. The flesh of me was wrapped too tightly over brittle bones and suddenly the concept of an age became too foreign to consider. 

A ringing in my ears sent a stabbing pain straight into my frontal lobe, white hot and too familiar. My limbs went into chaos, sending me staggering against the wall and back again, hands slapping my forehead to ease the pain, only blindly come in front of me for purchase on anything. My left hand hit the shelf under the mirror and the naked blade of a men's razor tore a clean slice along my palm. Gritting my teeth and breathing through the pain, I closed my eyes as I pressed my right thumb against the cut. Once the seizure in my head started to fade, I slowly opened my eyes to gauge my reflection once more. 

He was behind me and I had to stop myself from sobbing.

"Fuck!"

He smiled back at me, Satan in all his psychotic glory. He seemed almost sympathetic.

"I knew it! You fucking cunt! So what now?" I said angrily. "Gonna wake me up and torch me? I'm fucking ready for it."

"Adam," he calmly sighed, "I'm disappointed. Do you really think I'd let you go just to pull you back again?"

"Yes," I replied without hesitation. 

"Ok, yes, maybe I would, but not to someone so like me."

"I am nothing like you," I spat.

"Adam," he tutted. "You let me in. I'm in your melon, buddy. I thought we were amigos! That's got to count for something, right?"

I glared at him and he sighed.

"Were we, or were we not, betrayed by our brothers?" he said, sharply. He scrutinized me, and I briefly remembered all the time I had tried to slit his throat after he had shot me similar looks. "Were we, or were we not, buried underground and left to be forgotten?"

I was flooded with memories of a family that was mine, but wasn't. A father that was mine, but left me. Words of affection that carried as much weight and meaning as my own shit. 

He came up behind me, looking into my eyes in the mirror. 

"Don't forget that Sam and Dean let you become this. Traded you in exchange for their overwhelming codependency."

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to shake the sound of his voice out of my head. I tried to shake off every memory of my past in favor of a blank and distant future. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake the truth. If anything, Lucifer had always been honest. 

"I can help you find them, you know. Better one of us gets justice than none at all."

Opening my eyes, I stared blankly at his reflection. My reflection. 

"How?"

"I think you have all you need here to find James Frampton. Surely you remember how to Google?"

"I'm confused, I don't…" I drifted off. I didn't know who James Frampton was, why he mattered, or what he had to do with my brothers.

"He's the last viable lead to your big brothers. I should warn you…he's a witch with a bitch on his side." He laughed at the end of his statement, amusing himself. "His familiar is a dog. Get it?"

I didn't laugh.

He shrugged. "Tough crowd."

I brought my eyes down to the razor that had cut my hand, and suddenly everything made sense. It was almost shocking how easily I picked up the blade, without thought or emotion. I had become so immune to violence that killing seemed natural. 

Lucifer chuckled. "You did always prefer more….intricate methods."

It was true. I had a flair for delicacy. 

"There's a gun in the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom. And remember, Adam. They made you this way. Now you can show them what it means to really, truly hurt." 

"If family," I whispered, "is so important, then…"

"What about you?" Lucifer finished.

What about me.

~~~~

I found James in Millsboro, Delaware fucking someone who smelled more like a dog than an actual human being. When he went to work early in the morning, I crept in behind him and found her still in bed, luscious skin waiting to be torn apart. I bound and gagged her to a chair and placed her in the center of the living room. She didn't even cry, just stared at me for hours trying to will me into action. It's an odd thing, to feel neutral about human life. I wondered where my compassion was, if it had been pulled out of me and obliterated in the cage or if it had withered from lack of attention. 

I knew her name was Portia. I knew she had an unfathomable amount of power held within that small frame of hers. I knew that, under any other circumstance, she would fight me until my bones were between her teeth. But, lucky for me, I knew she would lay down and die for James if I told her to. She caught my meaning without any words at all and I loved the way she sat still as a statue, waiting like a good little dog for the sound of the door. 

His face was a picture of horror when he came home to find her, I swear I would have hung it on my mantle if I had one. As soon as she saw him, she started thrashing against the restraints I had so delicately tied. I stood behind her and wrapped her hair into my grip, giving a firm tug that sent the chair tipping back towards me. From my pocket I removed the naked blade, flicking it open to rest gently against the thin flesh of her jaw. 

"So nice of you to join us," I said.

"Who the hell are you?" He'd dropped his bag in the doorway and had cautiously stepped a few feet into the room, arms in front of him looking frantically from me to her. 

"My name is Adam Winchester. I'm looking for my brothers. I believe you know where they are."

I could tell he was taken aback, gawking at me and thinking me a liar. Behind his confusion, I could see the slow formulation of plan building behind his eyes, and I needed to kill it dead before it could even begin. 

"I was just thinking," I said, pleasantly, "about who the real pet here is. Now, I am generally a patient man, but if you try any of your withcy-woo bullshit, I will start cutting her." The humour of the situation was incredible: a man as a pet to a dog, a dead man in control of the living. I laughed loudly and, to prove my point, dragged the blade aggressively down her jaw watching the bright red flow. 

"STOP!" he shouted. 

I pulled back, smiling at him. "James, please tell me where my brothers are."

"I don't know," he breathed. "They didn't tell me."

I rolled my eyes. "James, don't fuck with me." 

In one swift motion, I brought the blade down into her shoulder, twisting firmly to the left and right. My eyes rolled back into my head as she screamed, the notes sounding like a vindictive opera. It gave me chills. As quickly as I had drove it in, I yanked the blade back out, studying the brilliant shade it had been dyed. On a spot of whimsy, I opened my mouth and dragged the dull side flat against my tongue. I swallowed and sighed.

"Your bitch tastes good." I couldn't help but smirk.

His eyes had bugged wide, and he'd moved several more feet into the room. To maintain his distance, I brought the blade under her throat.

"I swear to God -" he began.

"Oh, save it," I said flatly. "I know for a fact that God doesn't give a shit about what's going on here, and if he did, I doubt he'd be tempted to stop it. So, I will ask you one more time. Where the fuck are my brothers."

This time it wasn't a question, merely a statement. I knew he'd break. If he wanted to maintain this little charade of domesticity, he would break. 

"Detroit. Detroit, Michigan." 

"Really, I doubt you could be any more vague." Detroit was huge and I really didn't want to waste time searching for clues before they moved on.

"They said something about shifters, I don't - look, honestly, that's all I know. I don't have their numbers, I got rid of them the last time…to keep distance. Please." His breathing had become shallow and I almost felt badly for him. 

'Thank you," I said, and swiftly dug my blade into Portia's carotid artery. The sounds of her gurgling mingled with James' tortured screams. Her blood was hot like fire and, in the moment of her death I understood why he loved her so much, all that barely contained heat in one singular body.

"YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T -"

"I know!" I hissed. "Isn't it hurtful when people lie?" 

I reached behind me and pulled the gun I had found in the house out of my back pocket. I wanted to be shocked by how quickly I had aimed and fired, but then I had been trained by the very best with centuries of practice. The bullet hit his forehead before he could even make a move towards me. I'd never liked guns but there was something poetic about the weight and feel of it in my palm, the way it could so easily get a job done, that made me finally appreciate their longevity in the every-man arsenal. I admit I liked watching the life go out of his eyes. It felt like coming home. 

~~~~~~

Dad taught me to drive when I was fifteen, ignoring my mother's protests that I didn't have a permit; his recklessness was infectious. Even then, I knew that the Impala was something magnificent and that it would get me noticed. You're an idiot if you think guys love cars more than women. I watched their eyes follow me as I passed, crossing their legs at a subtle gleam of paint, licking their lips at the sound of the engine. I was chomping at the bit to inherit that car, kicked a hole in my bedroom wall when it became clear I never would. They say that things happen for a reason, because it was the car that lead me to my brothers. It's not every day you see a '67 Impala roll into town. I followed the trail of the shifter to a town on the outskirts of Detroit, from there all I had to do was ask if anyone had seen the car and it wasn't long before I was outside a Motel 6 door with a blade in my hand and a smile on my face. 

The sight of the car in the parking lot put a rage in my brain so breathtakingly wondrous I was convinced that it was what transcendence felt like. Now that I'd found them, it was a question of what I would do to them. Oh, I had a long and beautiful list I'd been compiling for centuries. I was overwhelmed with my choices of the glorious ways I could watch them die. 

When I knocked on the door, I felt an unfamiliar tingle of excitement and I was reminded that this was how it felt to be human, to be uncertain and plugged in to the world around me. It was positively thrilling. I had expected Dean's stunned expression or Sam's guilty eyes to be behind the door, but I was almost giddy with the sudden turn of events when Castiel opened the door like Curious George. I read every single thought that flashed across his face, and when he settled on the knowledge that this was impossible and wrong, I was all too eager to convince him otherwise. 

"Castiel," I said, dryly "It's so lovely to see you."

Pleasantries over, I pushed through the doorway and drove him in to the wall on the left side of the room, my arm pressing heavily into his neck. Three thousand years of fighting angels, I had learned tricks that he didn't even think a human could conceive. My speed had caught him off guard, my strength suddenly able to overpower him. I could see worry start to form behind his eyes and I had to stifle a laugh.

"I've been meaning to ask you: who are you wearing? They've cut you such a beautiful suit." 

"Adam -"

"Save it. You didn't even glance in my direction when you came for Sam." I was burning with contempt, loving that my starved body had retained all the strength it had spent ages building. It felt natural to choke an angel, so I pushed my arm harder against his neck and closed my eyes as he gasped for breath. Such an extraordinary symphony. 

"I failed…there was no I way I could have gone back for you after I had seen what I'd done to Sam."

I didn't want excuses from him, didn't want to see the false sympathy in his eyes, so I fondled the blade in my free hand and quickly thrust it into his gut. 

"At least," I said, bringing my face centimeters Castiel's as I twisted the blade, "Death had the decency to tell me a choice had been made to let me die. You didn't. Even. Look at me."

A different version of me might have wanted him to live with the guilt of what he'd done, with the understanding that he never really deserved the title Angel of the Lord. But the whole of me, the new me that had been born in hell fire, wanted to eviscerate him. With calculated slowness I turned the blade as one would if they were to commit seppuku, relishing in the way the blood seeped from between his lips. He wouldn't die, no. For this, I craved an angel blade. Death would not find him, but oh was I creative in all the ways I could break him from the inside out. 

As his blood dribbled down his chin, I began to wonder when I had acquired such a satisfying taste for blood. I suddenly craved the taste of him, having already sampled a familiar. It was a sort of tease, the thought of what an Angel tasted like, especially one so pretty as Castiel. I closed the small gap between our lips and kissed his essence off his skin, running my tongue along his bottom lip to catch the excess.

He was delicious. 

"What the fuck…"

I heard the stunned voice behind me, followed by the soft clatter of plastic bags and their contained items falling to the floor. Whispers of a barely contained smirk sprawled across my face and I pulled away from Castiel, chuckling briefly as his knees gave beneath him and he collapsed to his knees. Looking at the mess of an Angel that was at my feet, I waved a hand over my shoulder at my brothers.

"Nice of you to finally join us." I turned, then, looking straight at Sam when I finished my rotation. Seeing him outside the cage, he looked so different. He was clean, well fed, and appeared positively innocent. It was Dean that wore the grit all over his facial expressions, but I could tell that the hinges in Sam's mind were starting to come undone at the sight of me. It took a keen eye to notice the slow shattering of a person, and it had happen to me so many times that I was an expert at finding it in everyone else. 

"How did -"

I cut Sam off. Something about his voice, unscreaming, unbroken, unhurt, every other compound adjective, made my skin crawl and I didn't want to listen to his deliberate kindness. 

"Lucifer," I said sharply. "I didn't bother to ask how. In the grand scheme of things, that was the last question on my mind." 

"Can we cut the crap and ask what exactly you're doing to Castiel?" Dean said. Aggressive, as usual. We were so similar, but he would never see it. 

"Someone's awfully protective of their pet. Well." I reached behind me, wrapping my hand around the gun and pulling out in one fell swoop. I fired the first shot into Dean's shoulder, the second into Sam's calf. "I'm here for justice….or revenge, depending on your mood." 

"Jesus!" Dean howled. He'd fallen back against the door jam and was holding his shoulder as he approached me. I could sense his movements before he made them, ducking his fist and swiftly kicking his feet out from under him. Humans were so slow compared to Angels. 

The pain in my head returned, blinding me and forcing a scream from my chest that left my throat raw and my lungs resonating from its force. Lucifer was back in my head.

_"I told you," he hissed. "They never looked for you, not in Heaven or Hell. They took everything you were and incinerated it. They deserve everything we have in store for them. Do it."_

There was so much red in front of my eyes, I swore I was comatose.

_"Do it. Pull them apart. Show them how it feels. Make a cage of this dingy motel room and show them what you are now."_

I was nodding, or maybe I was shaking. I had no control over my limbs.

_"Everything you are was made for this. I'm your brother now. Look at all the power I've given you."_

The power did, indeed, feel like gold running through my veins.

_"Let's obliterate them. Together."_

When Lucifer stopped speaking, the red went away. I was back in the motel room, grounded and in my own head once more. But the scene had changed.

It was like experiencing a time slip. Castiel had somehow been impaled on the wall, crucified and bleeding like a second hand Jesus. Sam was in the corner of the motel room, clutching a shotgun with one hand, left shoulder clearly dislocated and fingers splintered at the wrong angles. My fist was in the process of pummeling Dean's imperfectly perfect face. 

I was missing a series of events, missing several minutes of memory.

But I was in control, and I didn't feel like stopping. 

Looking at the pathetic way Dean's face crumpled beneath my hand, I suddenly knew why Lucifer loved breaking him the last time I saw him, why cracking my fist into his cheekbone felt so unbelievably addicting. 

"You look like you were born to bleed."

I said it out loud, but realized I hadn't prefaced the statement only thought the words to myself. It didn't matter. I simply brought my fist back to his bones and laughed away the pain. 

"Do you have any idea what it's been like being me?"

I accentuated the question with a hard punch.

"Did you know that the only thing I've craved for the last three thousand years was a single thought in my head that belonged to me?" I might have been snarling, or crying. I couldn't tell the difference, so I kept talking. I clutched the collar of Dean's shirt, bringing his face close to mine to make sure he was listening. "You _made_ me this way."

"Adam," Sam called. He was breathing heavily, a sound I knew too well. "Adam, Dean asked Death to get you too."

I whipped my head around to him, wishing I could spit venom. "Don't make excuses for him. You walked right out of there with Death, boon fucking companions, and didn't even spare me a second glance." 

"I don't know what you want us to do, we can't change the past."

"I want you to DIE!" I screamed, eyes bugging. "I want. You. To. _Die._ " 

"Then why haven't you killed us, huh?" Sam asked. "You can, clearly. You're stronger than the both of us, so why are you hesitating. Just get it over with."

The red was coming back, the sensation of my brain being severed. I dropped Dean, hands fisting in my hair as I staggered backwards. "You should have looked for me in hell," I whimpered, but it didn't sound like me. It sounded like Lucifer. 

"Adam, if there had been a way, we would have. I know you. You saved my life thousands of times in the Cage. We were protecting each other."

Sam's voice was breaking through the red, but it wasn't enough to stifle Lucifer's casual repetition of 'LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE,' like a petulant five year old reverberating through my mind. 

I had memories of Sam leaning over my skinned body, stopping Lucifer from prodding me to ash with flame and taking it all himself. I remembered pulling Sam from hellfire and blocking him from the splattered rubble of Michael's fist. And I remembered him leaving with Death, I remembered the deal made on my behalf, I remembered everyone being in my head.

I was being made into an image of Lucifer and understood that the real Adam hadn't existed since before he was put in a cage. I was simply lost and had no way back. 

Everything in my head was silent. 

The room was full of shaking breaths and groans of agony. 

I made a decision and it was poetic in its irony.

With abandon I walked over to Sam and stared at him briefly, wishing that, as creative as my mind could be, it would conjugate memories of when Sam and I were happy, but I was never that imaginative. I kneeled next to him and wished I could cry, but I only felt a resolute sort of sadness that had copulated with pride.

I brought my mouth the barrel of the shotgun, wrapping my lips around it like a dutiful whore. I pulled Sam's hand to the trigger and waited briefly for the taste of smoke and metal; the taste of finality. 

See, I was a thing made to be killed, and this was the only time I was going to have a say in how it happened.

At least this choice was mine.


End file.
